Pinky **** (1949, Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters) – Classic Movie Review 12,093

Director Elia Kazan’s 1949 American drama film Pinky stars Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, and Ethel Waters. It is based on the 1946 novel Quality by Cid Ricketts Sumner. It was produced by Darryl F Zanuck at 20th Century-Fox. It was nominated for three Oscars, earning Crain, Barrymore and Waters Academy Award nominations. Despite its subject of race relations, it was advertised as ‘The poignant story of a girl who fell hopelessly in love!’

Pinky is a worthwhile, extremely careful and well thought-out early race issue film about a light-skinned young black woman called Pinky Johnson (Jeanne Crain) who pretends to be a white woman, or passes for white, when she comes home to the US South to visit Dicey (Ethel Waters), the illiterate black laundress grandmother who raised her.

Crain is the washerwoman (Ethel Waters)’s grand-daughter who nurses the old lady’s sick employer Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore). When Pinky (Crain) inherits after Miss Em (Barrymore) dies, the family tries to intervene. Pinky falls in love with a white doctor, Dr Tom Adams (William Lundigan), unaware of her true race.

Jeanne Crain, Ethel Waters.

The intelligent screenplay by Philip Dunne and Dudley Nichols, involving acting (especially the three main performances) and Kazan’s devoted direction all mount up to an important, trail-blazing movie of the day, though you will have to make allowances for its age.

Also in the cast are William Lundigan, Basil Ruysdael, Nina Mae McKinney, Kenny Washington, Evelyn Varden, Raymond Greenleaf, Frederick O’Neal, Griff Barnett, Robert Osterloh, and Juanita Moore.

Pinky was released in the US on 29 September 1949 by 20th Century-Fox. Though controversial because of its subject of race relations and the casting of Irish Catholic actress Crain to play a black woman, it was a critical and commercial success.

Elia Kazan, who took over the direction after John Ford was fired, was unhappy with the casting. He recalled: ‘Jeanne Crain was a sweet girl, but she was like a Sunday school teacher. I did my best with her, but she didn’t have any fire. The only good thing about her was that it went so far in the direction of no temperament that you felt Pinky was floating through all of her experiences without reacting to them, which is what “passing” is.’

Ethel Barrymore (August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, winning for None but the Lonely Heart (1944). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Spiral Staircase (1946), Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947) and Pinky (1949).

In a career peak, Crain was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her title role in Pinky. In the early 1960s, Crain was one of many conservative actresses who promoted the Republican Party.

The cast are Jeanne Crain as Pinky Johnson, Ethel Barrymore as Miss Em, Ethel Waters as Dicey Johnson, William Lundigan as Dr Tom Adams, Basil Ruysdael as Judge Walker, Kenny Washington as Dr. Canady, Nina Mae McKinney as Rozelia, Griff Barnett as Dr. Joe McGill, Frederick O’Neal as Jake Walters, Evelyn Varden as Melba Wooley, Raymond Greenleaf as Judge Shoreham, Juanita Moore as Nurse, Arthur Hunnicutt as Police Chief, and Harry Tenbrook as Townsman.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,093

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